requiem æternam
by TolkienGirl
Summary: This is the funeral of a soldier. (Natasha's thoughts at Peggy's funeral.)


**A/N: Inspired somewhat by a deleted scene, and by the funeral scene in general. Title is Latin for "eternal rest." This is slightly Romanogers-ish (isn't everything).**

This is the funeral of a soldier.

Natasha lowers her eyes as men and women file in. There is so much black, and the heavy scent of flowers hangs in the air like incense.

Natasha has seen death a thousand times, but the rites of passage from life to—whatever follows…that, she does not know so well.

There are stone fonts filled with water by the walls. The faithful (and she can be faithful, though she does not belong here) dip their fingers and trace crosses on their foreheads.

Peggy Carter is dead, and Natasha Romanoff sits in a back pew wondering again if she should believe in God.

...

Chain link running through miles of Russia, air like ice needles in her lungs. Two stones, two names, and she had fallen to her knees though she had never learned how to pray.

...

This is the funeral of a soldier. Peggy Carter was a war hero half a dozen times over. Natasha has read her file. She wonders why she never got to know Peggy better; they'd only met a couple of times.

She wonders what it was like to be the only woman Steve Rogers has been known to love.

Peggy Carter Sousa, the program says. Her husband died five years ago. She has two children, with grown children of their own. They are here. Some of them are crying. Her niece speaks during the service.

Natasha wonders who would weep for her, for Natasha Romanoff, and then she feels selfish.

She smooths out the memorial pamphlet and waits for the organ to thunder above them. The children of the choir sing like angels, but all Peggy can hear is a soldier's march.

The last march.

...

She sat in the back so that Steve wouldn't see her at first. There's a war coming, a war Peggy won't have to be part of, and Natasha knows things are complicated. Steve is stubborn as hell, and Tony is proud, and they both are steely in their resolve.

Natasha, though—she's everything and nothing, stubborn only in survival.

Sometimes, she wonders if she even survived at all. That's the trouble with being a chameleon; it's hard to know how much remains, change after change.

The stained glass casts rosy patterns of sunlight across the somber crowd. Natasha sits in the back; she doesn't belong her.

Holy places weren't made for people like her.

...

Steve walks tall, even with a coffin on his shoulder.

 _God,_ Natasha thinks, and it's almost a prayer. _God._ How much this must hurt him.

...

Afterwards, he stands in an empty church. Sam, Natasha thinks, must be waiting outside. Steve's hands are in his pockets. He looks like he always does when he's thinking, at least from behind. She can imagine his intent gaze, the slight furrow in his brows.

She doesn't belong here. Mostly, she doesn't belong with him.

 _Not worthy, not worthy_.

But they're friends. And right now, that's all that matters.

The words they exchange are few, sparing. He asks who else signed the Accords, and she tries to find the words to bring him home.

He says no. He was always going to say no.

And because this is a funeral, and because she is his friend, she doesn't push. She just watches the corners of his lips twitch, sees that his eyes are a little too bright. Captain America is grieving, and what makes Natasha's heart twinge is that this—this is Steve all the time, anyway. She's never seen him when he wasn't grieving something. It is only now brought sharply to the forefront.

Peggy's picture smiles down on them, blank and unseeing, the face of the beloved dead.

Two gravestones in Russia, and that is all. Natasha doesn't even know if they suffered.

"I didn't want you to be alone," she says. Her voice does not falter; she has never been one to let her tears fall.

Steve nods. A moment passes.

Natasha met Peggy twice, maybe three times? She thinks, _I didn't know her very well_. Then she wonders what Peggy would do if she were here.

Natasha puts her arms around Steve, and only breathes when he rests his head on her shoulder.

They stand tall together.


End file.
